Writer in Australia who creates characters that often don't like me.

In Defence of the Teenage Girl

With the burgeoning success of posting videos on Vine, Instagram, Facebook etc, it is likely that you have come across some kind of short video of teenage girls doing something ’embarrassing’. Most likely you will see that these videos are accompanied by comments such as, “dumb sluts” / “would like to see them try that in ma house” / “kids these days are so effing dumb and disrespectful” / “the world is doomed” / “fuck this generation”. And so on in all varying forms.

Generally, no matter the behaviour of the teenage girl in the video, I am more inclined to think the people commenting are the disrespectful meanies (with a big splash of ‘were you ever young?’). The videos I’m talking about are the ones where a young women do some kind of booty-shaking dance / choreographed moves or sing-a-long. They have obviously spent a bit of time that day learning their moves and practicing them.

“Booty-shaking”. I’m hip. I’m down. I’ve got the 411, and you are not going out and getting jiggy with some boy, I don’t care how dope his ride is. Mamma didn’t raise no fool.

Then of course, comes the filming of the dance and posting it online.

Cue: hateful comments. This is the part where I shake my head in disbelief. Do I think that thirteen year-olds should be posting booty-shaking moves online for the world to see? Not really, no. Do I think people need to realise that girls have been learning dance moves together since possibly the beginning of music? Yes. The only difference is that girls post themselves doing the dances now.

Every time there is one of these videos I am more baffled by how people seem to think these are habits undertaken only by today’s generation when really, young girls have danced together at sleepovers to the music of the day for a long time. Surely this isn’t new information? I remember attempting to learn one particular dance from Center Stage with my friend when young. This was not the only time. I was not good at dancing. Boy-oh-boy did I think I was. We thought we were doing awesome. I’m pretty certain we would have filmed it if we could – and then probably posted it if that was our world. There was one particular afternoon where a friend and I made our own film version of a real film with her parents video camera. We thought that shit was sweet. Was it? No. Ohhhh no. 1000 no’s, but we thought it was at the time and agreed it would probably online if we were 14 today.

What (I assume) people on Facebook think dancing leads to. Things which are again, kind of normal teenager experiences.

People who jump immediately onto their high horses on facebook seem to forget that this is a normal part of being a teenager. It’s just that the normal behaviour has morphed into today’s social-media environment. For teenagers, posting videos and photos is normal because this is what they know. They are surrounded by social-media and have been from a younger, more impressionable age than adults of today who remember the days pre-internet.

Sexy dance moves? Some of them are, yes. Though I don’t remember if there were particularly sexy moves in Center Stage, you can bet your Betsy that if there was, we copied them. The thing about being a teenage girl is that you will often do sexy dance moves; in the school corridor, alone in your room, at parties. I promise I’m not just speaking from personal experience – this is what I remember from observing other teenager girls when I was one. The difference, again, is not the presence of sexy moves, it’s that the sexy moves are broadcast on the internet now. Should young women be doing something sexy on camera for the public to scrutinize? No. Should we expect all young women to refrain from being sexy online if the internet is part of their normal and nobody has educated them on why not instead of just calling them ‘whores’ when they do? No.

Teenagers aren’t the height of mature. We know that. It’s up to the parents to know how to monitor internet use but to also show their children how to conduct themselves online. It’s up to us to demonstrate that a lot of things are better kept private. It’s up to teenagers to learn from their mistakes. But it’s not up to you, random facebooker, to angrily yell about how all teenage girls today are ‘little whores’. Doesn’t really help.

That’s all I’m saying; angry commentors and baffled adults who don’t seem to remember ever seeing any young ladies dancing learned moves or giving a bit of a booty-shake in the corridors at school, at a sleepover, in a film or a television show, at a dance or disco. The difference in this generation is not that girls dance, it’s that they post it online afterwards. (I also have an inkling they see why more bare butts on tv these days.) Is this a good thing? I can’t say for sure. Perhaps in the future they will cringe at their old postings and learn humility from them, perhaps the culture of dirty-moving tweens will further flourish. Either way, enough with the ‘back in my day we’d never dream of dancing this way’ comments. They’re clearly having no effect.

15 thoughts on “In Defence of the Teenage Girl”

Maybe the thought out there is desperate times call for desparate measures? I don’t know, but i guess if we focus on the details too much, we can lose sight of the bigger picture. Life is quirky that way. Hope your Friday is a quirky one in a good kinda way!

There is always room to learn and it doesn’t matter how old or young we are, its inevitable for us to evolve. I like that you defend the issue, because probably “back in the day” similiar antics were done, publicly as well. The only difference is we didn’t have access to intant media to share our craziness “look what i just did antics!” kudos jessmittens

I’m with you, Jess. Being a teen today is something else entirely. Me and my friends made tons of ridiculous videos when we were younger and I’m sure we would have been ridiculous enough to post some of them online for the world to see if that was the thing. I’m sure there would have been plenty of haters commenting, too.

teenage girls are more beautiful than flowers and anyone who says mean things about them is jealous and……mean. Your post reminded me that a hundred years ago I used to practice the “go go” and hope I was appearing “sexy”
LOL! I had forgotten about that. You are a compassionate, gifted writer Jessica. :)

I remember, as a teenage girl, reenacting Titanic and other movies. We filmed it but it was on a video camera. Insufficient technology was the only reason it never went on the internet!
The thing that bothers me is that you would never say these things to someone in person. It’s so frustrating that the anonymity provided by the internet makes it acceptable to hurt someone’s feeling and be cruel.

Haha yes that was our reason, too! I’m replying to these after having just seen someone upload a video of their boyfriend in the shower on facebook, which makes me so glad there wasn’t this kind of mindset for sharing videos when I was a teenager, not that I remember showering in front of any boyfriends then haha.

So true! Reminds me of the Louis CK joke about about how it’s acceptable to yell horrible things when driving at other drivers but you’d never get up into someone’s face in real life and yell “I HOPE YOU DIE!” Internet is the same.

You know, I read an article about this yesterday. Some new platform is introducing a new way for people to share photos and videos online. Honestly, snapping photos or videos of dance moves, sexy photos, nudes whatever is something just about everyone in the world has done at one time or another…it’s just that not everyone posts them online. The worst part is that young girls are totally slut shamed while all the videos and snaps of penises out there make no dent whatsoever. It’s sad.

Oh I’ll have to google this and see what other people have said! I always find there are wonderfully eloquent people out there who can say things better than I can. It is ridiculous to completely slut-shame teenage girls – it’s like people forget they’re young or think that they deserve it just because they’re teenage girls.